Robin must have fallen asleep for the 10 minutes it took Ian to get there because she woke up with a start to Ian knocking energetically on her window. She opened the door and he leaned over her. The Much Ado audio was still playing away.
"Still in your phase of loving Nothing?" He said.
She looked down and away.
"The play, bird. The play." He laughed. "Ready to go?" He opened the door wider so she could get out.
It took her a minute to realize that he hadn't been making a comment on past events.... Her blonde moments always did come out quite a bit when she first woke up.
But, as Benedick would say, Robin thought to herself, "there's a double meaning in that."
She walked over in silence with Ian to his red pick up truck.
Ian was one of the first people Robin had met when she first moved to Virginia last year. His family was the one that owned the house her and Kate rented. He stopped by the house to drop the key off for Robin that first day. Kate had already moved in a few weeks before and had told Robin that she was perfectly content to be alone in her room most of the time. So when Robin invited Ian into their apartment that day, it was mostly just them talking the whole day with occasional interruptions of small talk from Kate when she came out to make food. Robin had felt very at home with Ian as soon as she met him. He reminded her of her older brother: taller than her, blonder than her, and much more at peace with life than her. They talked a lot about the city, and how much Ian was convinced Robin would love it. Robin shared that she wanted to be an actress at the famous old Shakespeare theater in town, which was the main reason for her moving there. Ian then shared that he had as much acting prowess as a monkey on steroids. Robin remembered particularly harping on his failed analogy there, especially because just before he had told her he was in a PhD program for lit. He made up for it in her mind by telling her he had fallen in love with Shakespeare in his studies and went to the theater as much as he possibly could fit into his budget and schedule. She had kind of gawked at him when he told her he was in that PhD program, he reminded her too much of Wesley in Princess Bride for that to have sung true to her at first. The more she talked to him that day though, the more it made sense.
Robin thought about that day and how she had thought she had found quite the kindred spirit as she climbed into Ian's red crusty pick-up. True to her word, she didn't say anything...She didn't know what to say. When they got to the restaurant, she said "Thank you" and turned to get climb out of the truck.
"Do you need a ride home?"
"Oh.." She hadn't thought about it, truthfully. "No, that's ok... That's a lot of driving for you...I'll walk or ... find someone going to my end of town or...yeah. Thanks though. That's nice of you." She felt the awkwardness in her words hover over both of them.
"Just call me, bird, and I'll come later? Yeah, don't walk in this heat. Wouldn't want the penguin to get all sweaty." He laughed.
"Ok...thanks." She half smiled as she shut the door hurriedly. He smiled as he drove away but it wasn't the shining smile she used to see on his face. The fact that the shining was gone hurt her more than the silence they had had in the car.
She walked into the restaurant with a deep breath and fake smile plastered on her face. Certainly another lacking shine smile. If there was one thing she learned from Ian, it was that our vocations in life were to find what made us truly shine. As she walked inside to the dim litted 1st class restaurant, she prayed a little prayer that she'd be able to leave this place that took away so much of her light.
